


oxford, and other places to commit arson

by furyspook



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 23:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19187239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furyspook/pseuds/furyspook
Summary: crowley said war between humans and a higher power and i blacked tf out + when i came to this was sitting in my draftsand then it took me a month to finish! 🤷♂️





	oxford, and other places to commit arson

**Author's Note:**

> i am In It with books that chuck christian mythos around like a frisbee. truly this crossover was made for me. except for the fact that i havent read g/o in like 2 years and dont remember all of the details, and i'm playing it fast and loose with the events of tgc. yeah! i wrote this on my phone be nice 2 me.

The Other Oxford suited Aziraphale just fine, he thought, tucked up into his coat and trousers as formally as ever. If it were Crowley, his leathers and his denims, polyesters, what-have-you-s would have marked him a stranger before he'd even had the chance to study the place. This is what the angel did now, a packet of nuts courtesy of a street vendor at market in one hand and a long black snake around his shoulders. It hadn't taken long for them to realize that these animal companions were the standard in this world, and simply crossing into it didn't seem to bring the daemons forth. It was up to one or the other of them, then, to keep up appearances, and Crowley had never been able to say no to Aziraphale's excited little smiles.

"Do we have any idea what we're looking for?" The snake hissed, its flat head twisting in the sun, reflecting the light in undertones of red.

"I _assume,_ " Here Aziraphale stopped to swallow a bite, Crowley's tongue flicking impatiently, "I'll know it when I see it. It's not as if I'm in the loop anymore."

"Are you saying there's a possibility we came all the way out here-- the annoying _human_ way --and there might not even be a _thing_ to find?"

Aziraphale gasped in that almost comical offended way he had, and Crowley amended, "Now it's not that I don't trust you, lover, but how do you even _know?_ "

For a moment it seemed like Aziraphale wouldn't answer, but that was probably more because he was balking at a hideous, embarrassing term of endearment than that he was truly offended. With his free hand he pet along the scales at Crowley's back, face downturned. "It's just a feeling I have. One of _those_."

Crowley decided that it didn't matter how exactly they found what they were looking for. Sure, if they were looking for _nothing_ and they'd spent ages getting here sans the God-and-Satan-given miracles that would've taken them seconds to do the same for absolutely no blessed reason he would be pissed, but that could come after. His head lolled back down onto Aziraphale's shoulder and he went limp from head to tail-tip, reassurance that he was no more upset than usual and perfectly content to let the other do all of the leg work. Aziraphale cracked another nut between his teeth.

"And this would be the place to find something, wouldn't it?" He asked absently, "With all of these people coming and going?"

Something that the angel did on occasion: asking the devil on his shoulder for reassurance that he was in the right. It would've been laughable a comparatively short time ago. It still was once in a blue moon, but at the moment Crowley could be nothing but endeared. Even if it was proving a hard habit to break, there were always worse habits to have.

Crowley hummed and knew that Aziraphale could feel his affirmation against the skin of his neck. Aziraphale nodded to himself and started off again through the marketplace.

This world felt distinctly different than their own, and it seemed to be advancing more slowly, but there was a familiarity even in that. The same old brick made up the buildings, and where they were paved the roads were composed of the same concrete. People wore the same fashions-- if decades out-of-date to the discerning modern eye --and they were just as loud. Important as the task felt, Aziraphale couldn't help but wonder at all of it. He was familiar with the Oxford of their own world, as it lends itself to the procurement of old books and fine pastries, and could recognize the differences between this and that one. He would point them out to Crowley ( _and this shop just does not exist_ , _this alley, i believe, is a street, back home_ , _don't you think this garden would look beautiful if it were to, hmm, shift sideways dimensionally into the other one?_ ) who would dutifuly remind Aziraphale that he'd spent the last 400 years avoiding Oxford entirely and has forgotten everything about it.

"But then, this market would never fit into our Oxford." Aziraphale said finally, equal parts confident and disappointed.

"No great loss." Crowley said, completely plainly. "Unless there's a secret back half dedicated to wine tasting."

And when Aziraphale stopped walking very suddenly Crowley began to wonder what, exactly, had been so offensive about his comment. And then he turned to ask, and found that the angel was looking out across the square towards the river.

Over the centuries Crowley hadn't quite managed to go blind to the presence of children. Despite his best efforts, even as he'd avoided tempting them while he was on Hell's payroll, he could never manage to ignore them. There was just something about children that refused to be ignorable. There, crouching at the river's cobbled edge, were a handful of the little things, their shins painted with mud and their faces pulled into determined little frowns. Crowley watched as a girl shifted to her feet at the center of the group and started barking out orders to her small companions. The boys around her nodded or pulled faces, but in turns they each started to dig at the earth and pluck out small stones.

"Aziraphale," Crowley started, and the angel stiffened as if shocked.

"I think this is it, Crowley... I think it's that child." Aziraphale had the sense, at least, not to run forward shouting for them, but he _did_ start fidgeting with his coat pockets, which was an indication that he would do very soon. Crowley raised his tail and brought it down again on Aziraphale's shoulder.

"And you're sure?" He asked, hoping to the highest that it wouldn't be another fucking child chase but resigning himself to it nonetheless. "What would our next move even _be_ here, Angel? I know you aren't fond of kidnapping."

Aziraphale sputtered indignantly (managed not to say anything about his lack of negative feelings on the subject), but Crowley noted he wasn't smoothing his lapels any longer and wasn't at all sorry. The angel shook his head but he conceded, "No. I don't know. I don't even know what she's here for, I don't know what we want her for--!"

" _Exactly._ We can't exactly approach a child on the street and say ' _Heaven's been looking for you_ ', now, can we?" 

Crowley soothed his tailtip against Aziraphale's shoulder and waited for the uncertainty to pass, training his snake's eyes again on the little girl in question. She couldn't have been much older than Adam had been back then, and he had to wonder what it was about the Plan and the prepubescent. Aziraphale straightened his back and set his shoulders with new determination and Crowley knew that they would do nothing as yet before he even had a chance to speak. 

"I've an idea!" Crowley could not physically roll his eyes, but he _felt_ the eye roll deep in his spirit and tried to push it outward and impress it on his companion. " _We_ don't know what to do, but _somebody_ is bound to! If we keep an eye long enough, that somebody will tell us what we need to know." 

Aziraphale seemed too self-satisfied for Crowley to take joy or pride in mentioning that this had been his go-to plan for all of Earthly history, so he did not. 

As the angel and the demon hung 'round his neck watched, the very important, sky-shattering child and her cohorts crossed the cobbles to a patch of shrubbery. She impressed more orders on the boys and in moments pebbles were flying into batches of fresh-made tarts, into the face of the baker behind them, and the girl's golden hair disappeared behind the cart under assault. The baker shouted, ran for the children in the bushes who dropped their handfuls of stones and beat a hasty retreat down an alley, and a grubby, calloused hand pulled the tart rack down. 

And then she reappeared, shirt seemingly stuffed to the waist with pastry, and threw herself across the square and down another side street. And Crowley snickered into the short hairs at the base of his angel's neck. While Aziraphale sputtered Crowley hissed, "At least it won't be boring."

***

White overhead lights, bare, dark walls, and the drone of speech at the appropriate indoor volumes, a building as unused to the children it housed as they were to it. Reeking of the bureaucracy both Crowley and Aziraphale were very familiar with. Bolvangar, the infamous facility housing uncountable (one thousand and three, but this wasn't an important detail) stolen children, was drenched with negative emotion. Crowley could feel it, and it was so strong that even Aziraphale's soft white feathers shuddered and refused to lie flat. Where there wasn't fear or confusion or sadness, Crowley could taste a cold determination. It wasn't hateful. What left the bad taste in his mouth was the undertone of righteousness-- the _they will thank us later_ of it all.

He walked the halls in full uniform even as he loathed the idea and loathed the fashion yet more. It was their prerogative to gather as much information on the practices of the establishment as possible, and it was clear even to Crowley that this information wouldn't be given to just any bugger in off the street. The uniform itself was light in color, stiff fabrics and designations on the lapels-- a thoroughly horrible choice, and unsuited to a demon of his tastes, but though Aziraphale boasted a wealth of knowledge he would never have the stomach for experimental biology.

Now as he walked he could feel the angel's talons piercing both the fabric at and the flesh of his shoulder, just  _another_ thing to hate about the garb. They'd given the old 'raptor-on-the-hand' thing a fair try but as it happens an unprotected hand is equal parts meat and bone and both are easily distressed.

He'd noticed on their arrival that each daemon they saw in this place seemed to be a dog. He had said as much to Aziraphale, who balked at the idea of going around on all fours. _No,_  he'd said, _This is much better, dear._

The problem then became _I don't remember a snowy owl amongst our staff_ , but it happened that none of the researchers with whom Crowley spoke-- all of them pencil pushers, documenting and duplicating records of past experiments and the theories of doctors on site --seemed up to questioning his sudden appearance, and it was a rare thing that he left that leg of the compound. So all in all, they seemed to be perfectly fine spies. 

Perfectly fine save for the spying part. Crowley knew his way around a filing cabinet but had been unable to talk his way into the testing chamber, the largest room in the experimental wing and the place responsible for his discomfort. In another plane he could feel his wings rattling on their bones and in this one he knew that his skin burned for the suffering of others, and he told Aziraphale as much while he lay in their bunk, owl tucked warm against his chest. The angel shook his feathered head sadly and went boneless against him. _My dear, my dear,_ he said. Crowley would set his hand on Aziraphale's back and put it out of his mind for a rough night of sleep, which his angel forewent in his way. 

For days this went on, the waiting and the watching and the fiddling with the locks. _Intercision_ was merely a definition to the pair of them now, the act of separation via knife, but such a thing was still abstracted by the tone of the papers, the fact that it was _written_ on a paper all at. It sounded as clinical as it sounded barbaric, but for all intents and purposes it didn't seem to be going very well. A miracle would have them in the lab in seconds, he was sure, but Aziraphale warned him against bringing the attention of either side onto them. _A door? A simple door?_ Crowley would say, and Aziraphale would nod sagely (this modifier owed entirely to his present form), and for the sake of maintaining their cover and out of trust for his companion Crowley had agreed. If the researchers took no issue with a new, unknown man on their team, surely it was only a matter of time before they open to him the only door that matters. Even if it meant waiting while his skin crawled clear off of him. At least the girl was in sight.

"She's been web-weaving these past few days," Crowley bit out around a small but excruciating bite of oatmeal. The research team to which he'd added himself ate together before and after shift, and during their single break, so the demon needed to keep up a human appearance. "All of the children are listening to her."

Aziraphale nodded and paced first one way across the short edge of the table and then the other. Unlike Crowley, whose eyes were as always covered by his dark glasses, the angel's present anatomy meant that anything which needed looking at must be faced head-on-- not terribly discreet. 

"And the ones that don't listen to her, they're listening to her daemon." The owl replied, fixing big blue eyes on its other. "A natural influencer." 

"And they'll trust her because she's confident." Crowley went on, wedging his spoon into his bowl and noting that it could stand upright for the meal alone. He looked equal parts surprised and hateful at the discovery. 

"Do you think that it's well-placed confidence?" Aziraphale nestled himself underneath Crowley's chin on the tabletop, taking a moment to scan the cafeteria now that he faced it again. 

"I don't think anything." Crowley answered with a set to his jaw that said that he thought a great many things. Aziraphale could feel it against his skull but said nothing more about it. 

"'Nother shit supper, eh?" One of the other researchers passed behind Crowley and gave his back a hefty nudge with their elbow. 

He briefly considered turning them into a pile of laboratory mice. He did not.

Instead he took up his tray and rattled its contents, standing, grinning, "You know I can't bear to eat anything that looks like it came out of the cat box." 

"You must be half-starved, Anthony, it's no wonder you're hardly sleeping!" Another coworker called from down the line. 

Crowley tossed the unfinished meal, silverware and all, into the trash bin by the door on his way out. Aziraphale followed on the wing before growing tired and swooping in to catch Crowley by the shoulder.

The research wing would be empty at this hour, or nearly. A few of the medical team were known to stay behind to tidy or to gossip but they'd not seen Crowley before. Taking a knee before the door to the restricted lab, Crowley got to work. "Why are all of these locks so terrible?" 

The owl dropped from his shoulder to the floor beside him, cocking its head to one side. "I think that if they're succeeding at keeping you out, Crowley, they're actually very good locks." 

The demon shot him a look that he ignored with the practiced ease of someone who'd been doing it for hundreds of years. "This would be _so_ easy if you would just let me--" 

"Crowley, I told you that miracles in this place could be dangerous!" Aziraphale ruffled his feathers and shook them back into order. "And why aren't you already a master lockpick? You're a criminal!" 

" _Not_ a criminal!" Crowley cursed as he fumbled the mechanism and pulled his pins back into his lap. "I've only ever influenced other people into thievery, Angel. That's _work_." 

Aziraphale hopped into Crowley's lap and scrabbled at his knuckles with one clawed foot. "Let me try! Maybe you're doing it wrong!" 

"What, are you going to pick it with your feet?" Crowley asked, incredulous and clinging on to the pins for dear life. 

"Neither of you are going to do _anything_." 

Before they could react the fire doors at the far end of the hallway shut, just behind a pair of facility doctors holding one struggling little girl. 

Unfortunately for everyone, it was _their_ struggling little girl. 

"But what did you _think_ you were doing?" One of the doctors asked, and the other steered Lyra towards the door. 

Crowley stood to speak but Aziraphale silenced him with a full-wing smack to the back of his head. 

"No matter what it was, I'll call security once we're through with the test!" The door was unlocked, and the doctors herded both Crowley and Lyra through it, though to different ends.

The demon found himself standing just to the left of the door while the girl began to thrash as she was lifted completely off of the floor and the animal in her lap was pulled away. Both Lyra and the beast started to scream. Crowley gaped at them, and then at their captors. Between the four of them was a machine, though unlike any he or the angel had ever seen before: a box at either end and a tube between them, while running down from the ceiling was a guillotine contraption and a fine-edged blade which seemed poised to split the tube. _Intercision is the act of cutting one whole into two parts by severing what connects them._

Aziraphale screeched at Crowley's shoulder and beat his wings, snapping him out of his shock in time to see one of the doctors shove Lyra fullbodied into one of the boxes. She was crying, now, and though her hands couldn't fit through the gaps in the bars she tried to reach desperately through to her companion, likewise screaming as he cycled through animal after animal, throwing himself into the box as if he could beat it down if only he tried hard enough. 

The machine had started to whirr and clank as it woke but it could hardly be heard over the begging of the children inside of it. The doctors paid their cries no heed and nor did their little grey dogs, who stood at heel and watched with gruesome interest. 

"Crowley!" Aziraphale shouted, and the demon nodded only half in his own mind. The owl took flight from his shoulder and into the face of the doctor operating the machine, undeterred by the barking of his daemon or by whatever kept the daemons of others from touching humans who did not belong to them. Crowley himself approached the bulk of the machine, taking hold of the central mechanism with both hands and feeling the metal twist under his hands. He couldn't pull it free lest the blade come down, but to melt it-- 

The observing doctor paid him no mind, now fighting to pull the owl from the face of his colleague and catching talons of his own for the trouble. The ceaseless clicking of the machine grew more urgent as time passed and Crowley sunk his fingers into the metal of the other side, pushing the track shut. The blade fell, but no farther than the metal of the track pinched together several inches from its home. 

Crowley watched Aziraphale gouge through the face of the doctor and turn as the man shouted to follow the other, who already bore scratches and who was turning to flee. Crowley glued his feet to the floor and left him at the angel's mercy to break the girl and her daemon out. Lyra stumbled onto the floor but rounded the machine in a whirlwind, and when the other door sprung open the fuzzy little thing threw itself into her arms and neck with terrified chitters and coos that hurt Crowley to hear. It was private, and he turned his back. 

The doctor who wasn't, for all intents and purposes, now a fixture of this room had started a blind stumble to the door on his knees, hand on the back of his dog who led him unsteadily towards the hall. There was a thud as the doctor (securely glued) hit the floor, but Crowley didn't pay him any attention, instead bringing his foot down on the back of the other and leaning low beside him. Both doctor and dog suddenly found themselves very stiff of limb. 

The sounds of brutal maiming by owl died down behind him. He heard the sound of talons scraping lightly over the floor and then the hushed voice of his companion speaking to the little girl, who answered no questions aloud. 

"Aziraphale, I think we'd better be gone." Crowley said, and he stood to his full height. 

"I think that you might be right." The angel shook out his feathers and flew up to alight on the closest of the cages. "Once we clean up here. It's almost time, now." 

Crowley looked back, now, and crossed the room to Lyra and Aziraphale, the latter of whom hadn't yet miracled himself clean. It was a quick matter to brush his hands Aziraphale's either side and disappear the gore on his belly, and Crowley took the time to ensure he was uninjured as well. Aziraphale watched him with a pleasant look in his eye. 

Lyra hadn't calmed down in the slightest, but she and her daemon had stopped muttering between themselves to watch the others. Her eyes were narrowed with distrust, and they wouldn't try to dissuade her of it now. Instead, Crowley said, "You all should run, too. I know you're all ready, so rally your little troops and get out of this place." 

"Before we burn it down, yes." Aziraphale turned his owl's head 'round to look at her, content to stay in the circle of Crowley's hands. "We'll wait for you, dear." 

Lyra nodded. "... Thanks. And I'm glad you tore out that man's eyes. He shouldn't have watched like that." And then she hurried out the door. They could hear her footsteps receeding. 

"We had better lock this room. Give them some time to get ready." Crowley suggested, lifting a manic owl into the crook of one elbow. "Since you've made a mess of the place."

Feathers ruffled in offense, Aziraphale cooed unhappily. "It's not like you didn't help!" 

As they left the room and as Crowley locked the door with a minuscule miracle, a woman with a horribly angry red face pushed open one of the far fire doors. She stormed towards them, the dual glares both she and her daemon leveled them strong enough to freeze Hell over, and shouted, " _The girl!_ The girl you idiots brought in for your experiment! Where is she?! And if you don't know, then get _out_ of my way!" 

She reached around Crowley and tore at the doorknob, uselessly (as this door would never open again). 

"Girl?" He asked, looking confused if a little smug for the act. " _Girl..._ " 

As the woman set a key into the lock and turned it, Crowley started to walk off. She pulled fruitlessly at the door again and nearly growled. Aziraphale snickered, and Crowley called back over his shoulder, "Never seen her."

**Author's Note:**

> me taking coulter out of this story also also making her wildly ooc when she does appear: bye lol 
> 
> me realizing ive taken away an opportunity for lyra to be a clever little liar: oh no


End file.
